[OT] Avoiding Unnecessary Updates -- WAS: Re: IS: Script Editor Styles Format Change Script -- WAS: Re: String to list conversion
[OT] Avoiding Unnecessary Updates -- WAS: Re: IS: Script Editor Styles Format Change Script -- WAS: Re: String to list conversion
- Subject: [OT] Avoiding Unnecessary Updates -- WAS: Re: IS: Script Editor Styles Format Change Script -- WAS: Re: String to list conversion
- From: Johnny AppleScript <email@hidden>
- Date: Tue, 14 Sep 2004 23:27:23 -0600
On 04/09/14 10:23 PM, "Paul Berkowitz" <email@hidden> wrote:
> On 9/14/04 9:08 PM, "Johnny AppleScript" <email@hidden> wrote:
>
>> Thanks for the detailed explanation; it helps a lot to realize I'm not in
>> control and can't afford to be so. (:
>>
>> I've heard numerous bad reports of problems with the updaters,
>
> That's total nonsense. The 10.1.4 Updater fixed about 1000 bugs and
> improvements in Office.
Well, you're certainly entitled to your opinion based on your own
experience, but around here and elsewhere people lost lots of time and data
to botched MSO updater applications. A general note went out warning us to
avoid the patches unless specific issues were being experienced that were
named as fixed by the updaters. And then, possibly due to our custom
installations outside the Applications folder, or large databases, or
multiple users, or whatever, specific steps for backups in case of problems
need to be taken, and it all is just a bit much when you're not getting paid
enough to get done all the work you don't have time for in the first place.
Again, it may seem nonsense to you, but I suspect you don't support hundreds
of users, and hundreds of machines, either.
> Get it now. (So did 10.1.0 and 10.1.1: if you don't
> believe in updates, why aren't you in 10.0.0?)
The first update addressed a specific problem I was having; the later
updates address no problems I am aware of having. Simple, yes? If I ever see
an update that addresses a problem I need fixed, I'll take the required
steps to apply it. I don't consider a few pixels or points for a limited
purpose I'll rarely use to be worth the effort just now.
> The most important thing is that - as with all previous updaters - the
> database and database rebuild engine are more robust in each update. It's
> frankly - pardon me - stupid not to take advantage of that. You may be very
> sorry one day.
Possibly. But the DB is backed up to server every night, then optical media
and tape at least weekly, and all email is stored on the server for at least
3, if not 30 days. If my DB rebuild ever fails, I can pull yesterday's copy
off the server and resync with one download. I may be stupid, but I'm not
foolish. I think the only thing I might end up being sorry for is starting
this debate with someone so rabidly enamored of MS. ;-)
> Why do you call it a "tax"? You don't have to upgrade if you don't want to.
> What kind of perverse philosophy says that 3 years of work at making anew
> version with tons of new features shouldn't cost an upgrade price? Microsoft
> is no different form any other software company - everyone charges upgrade
> fees for major version upgrades. And so they should. In the meantime, you
> can update to v10.1.4 for FREE.
Ah, if only the FREE updaters would fix outstanding problems that most
people would define as bugs, but you apologists describe as features worthy
of another couple hundred bucks times hundreds of users at a site like this.
When MS starts fixing things in versions that could be purchased new within
the last three to six months to a year or so before the latest and greatest
feature bloat, such as fixing the show-stopping, app-crashing Junk Mail
Filter bug, we'll stop calling it a tax. When someone is sold on a product
based on extensive touting of a particular feature, and that feature is
broken, to the point of being effectively unusable, and not fixed until the
next paid upgrade, that's called a tax. It's unfair, and it doesn't fly
around here.
Such broken tools that force you to change the way you use the application
(we have to turn JMF off when we go home or hundreds of other automations
will fail if the app isn't able to even run) are not to be confused with
recognizably new features that improve ways of doing things; things, if they
appear to offer value to us, we are happy to pay for. But to force us to pay
money to fix a problem that you created in the first version, and have a
reasonable responsibility to take care of within a certain time period (we
purchased a number of copies of Office X in December 2003 and January 2004,
most of which did not qualify for any consideration for free upgrades, yet
all were purchased after the JMF bug was identified), all because your fix
just happens to include 150 new features we have no use or need for, that,
again, is a tax.
And don't blame the JMF bug on the spammers; they're not the only source of
such deadly emails we've received; and no mail app should fatally crash with
no clue as to source or how to fix it just because of a malformed header.
Could they have predicted it? Probably not, but they have been aware of it
for long enough that they should have fixed it before or around the time the
new version came out. Their apparent unwillingness to do so is the straw
that broke the camel's back here. We're not even a blip on their financial
radar, but I know we're not the only ones who are currently restricting
purchases because of it; I wonder how many dollars they lost in new sales
versus the cost to issue a fix for it. Probably not enough to change their
minds, but the issue is still the same; sometimes the right business
decision is one that costs you more than it earns you in the short term, but
in the long term pays off in spades.
> OK. The future is NOW, mind you.
It may very well be; it just may not be with MS. At least with Mail and iCal
and Address Book, the bug-fix tax is limited to one vendor, a vendor we have
to go with anyway. And I see Apple delivering far more "free" updates and
paid feature upgrades than MS is, and on a much larger scale.
Don't get me wrong, I love MS Entourage; I like Word, for what it is, but
can do OK for my purposes with any number of other apps; I love Excel, but
doubt I'll see a new version that offers some feature I just *have* to have;
I use PP occasionally, but it's really only because I already paid the tax.
I'll probably use Entourage until I see just enough in the Apple offerings
to make changing reasonably painless. Even then I will probably miss it. But
if MS were ever to Do The Right Thing, and at least fix the JMF bug for X, I
might reconsider paying for the next upgrade and keep the love affair going
on my own, in spite of what management thinks about it.
Cheers -- JA
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